Classic Poem

O Minden is a fortress good,
Armed strongly for resistance!
But from our Prussian fortresses
I like to keep my distance.

We reached the town at fall of night,
The bridge with sullen thunder
Groaned gloomily beneath our wheels,
The moat was yawning under.

The lofty bastions seemed to frown,
A menace in their anger;
The great gate, opening noisily,
Swung to with din and clangour.

I thought, “When Polyphemus closed
The cave with the stone, Ulysses
Was not more sad of soul than I,
Nor in plight more grave than this is.”

A corporal stopped us to ask our names.
“I'm an oculist, and as such, sir,
Giants have couched for cataract;
They call me Nobody Much, sir.”

Still lower my drooping spirits sank
At the inn; the food distressed me.
I retired to my room but could not sleep,
The blankets' weight oppressed me.

'Twas a yellow canopied feather bed
I stretched my uneasy limbs on,
From which a dirty tassel swung;
The damask curtains were crimson.

Accursed tassel! It robbed me of rest
Till the weary night was ended;
It swung like the sword of Damocles
Above my head suspended.

And now it seemed a serpent's form,
And it hissed, “You'll never win out of it
You are fast in the fortress, and fast shall bide.
You are doomed and damned—there's no doubt of it!”

And I moaned and sighed, “Were I only safe
In my home that alas! so far is—
Free in the Faubourg-Poissonière,
Beside my wife in Paris!”

Over my brow I felt at times
A curious something stealing;
'Twas like the censor's chilly hand,
And set my poor brain reeling.

A confused array of white gendarmes
In their shrouds my bed surrounded.
I seemed to hear the clank of chains—
How gruesomely it sounded!

And ah! the spectres carried me off—
In their clutch they held me surely.
On a steep and awful precipice
They tied me down securely.

And there was that horrible tassel again,
To my dreams so detestably tethered!
But now it had changed to a vulture bold,
Sharp-clawed and sable-feathered.

'Tis the Prussian Eagle, woe is me!
It has gripped me and torn the liver
With its cruel claws from my bleeding breast.
In vain I groan and quiver.

And thus till cock-crow I struggled and writhed
In the dream-bonds fever wove me—
Till I waked in Minden, perspiring in bed
With only a tassel above me.

I hardly dared to draw my breath
Till, posting on, I found me
Safe on the soil of Bückeburg
With the open country round me.